Interest Groups and Political Development in Turkey

by Robert Bianchi

Overview

This book shows that governmental efforts to expand corporatism in the major occupational associations intensified conflict in and between socioeconomic sectors, encouraged militancy from disaffected group leaders, and promoted polarization between pluralist and corporatist associations.

Originally published in 1984.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691640778
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	04/19/2016
Series:	Princeton Legacy Library , #723
Pages:	442
Product dimensions:	7.10(w) x 10.10(h) x 1.10(d)

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Interest Groups and Political Development in Turkey

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By Robert Bianchi

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1984 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-10149-1

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CHAPTER 1

Interest Groups, Political Participation, and Political Development

Since the end of World War II, the rapid proliferation of a wide variety of interest groups along with their increasing interaction with one another, with political party organizations, and with various governmental institutions has added an important new dimension to the politics of contemporary Turkey. The rapid emergence and diffusion of this network of groups representing specialized interests suggest that the Turks have been particularly precocious in developing "the art of association" while implementing broad social and economic change within the context of liberal democracy. This confirms the global hypothesis of most students of associational life since de Tocqueville and Durkheim that increasing group organization and activity are the result of the growing division of social labor and the expansion of formal political equality. But one of the most interesting aspects of the development of associability in modern Turkey is that it has so often displayed sharp discontinuities with the general level of socioeconomic development and structural differentiation. In different historical periods, social and economic sectors, and geographical regions, association formation commonly has either lagged behind or surged ahead of other aspects of social change. In other words, one of the most distinctive and striking characteristics of the art of association in Turkey is that historically it has been an independent and highly politicized dimension of modernization.

The highly politicized nature of Turkish associational life is observable not only in the close interconnections between government, party, and group leaders but also in the very different ways in which their relationships have been structured in order to advance or inhibit the representation of different socioeconomic and political interests. The complex and variable nature of interest group politics in Turkey is largely the result of the division of the Turkish associational universe into two different and often overlapping networks — the pluralist network of private voluntary associations and the corporatist network of semiofficial compulsory associations. In certain historical periods and in certain social and economic sectors, pluralist interest groups have been predominant. These have tended to broaden the scope and increase the intensity of interest conflict, to serve as important channels for expanding political participation, and to contribute to the reshaping and invigoration of party-electoral politics. But in other periods and sectors corporatist interest groups have been predominant. These have tended to suppress interest conflict, to constrict political participation, and to serve as instruments of social control.

One of the major objectives of this study is to describe the emergence of both corporatist and pluralist associations as competing means for structuring interest representation and to examine the tensions in Turkish political development that have been produced by historical shifts in the relative importance of these two types of groups. Particular emphasis will be given to analyzing the background and evaluating the consequences of associational policies pursued by recent governments in their attempts to implement central economic planning since the 1960 revolution. These policies have aimed at corporatizing the most important areas of Turkish associational life in order to limit political participation and reduce demands for economic redistribution without abandoning the formal framework of liberal democracy. Regardless of the stated or implicit intentions of these policies, however, they have contributed to a heightened perception of interest conflict between and within several important social and economic sectors and to a rising militancy among several groups in both corporatist and pluralist associational networks. This means that the principal, though unintended, consequence of recent attempts at corporatization has been the creation of simultaneous crises of political participation and distribution that seriously threaten Turkey's attempt to combine ambitious new plans for rapid economic development with the continuation of a democratic regime.

Much of what will be presented in the following chapters will describe and attempt to explain two of the most striking aspects of the development of interest group politics in modern Turkey: first, the common discontinuities between the degree of socioeconomic development and collective action through various associations; and, second, the rising militancy of several long-established and well-organized interest groups, which has contributed to more intense social conflict and to a major realignment of the increasingly fragmented and polarized party system. Both of these important outcomes conflict with some key hypotheses and assumptions concerning the development of interest groups that have become prevalent among the major theorists of political development and group politics. Most students of political development and most group theorists appear to agree on two global hypotheses concerning the emergence and development of group politics. The first is that the emergence of a network of specialized agents of interest representation is a basically spontaneous consequence of the growing division of labor in society and the expansion of citizenship. The number and variety of associations and the degree of group organization are generally assumed to be closely related to, if not basically determined by, the level of socioeconomic development. The second hypothesis is that as group organization becomes more highly structured and complex, interest groups tend to become politically less militant. Long-established and well-organized groups are assumed to contribute to a more exclusionary and less conflictive political process whose outcomes favor established elites and reinforce existing social and economic inequalities. While theorists may approve or disapprove of the consequences, there seems to be remarkably wide agreement that as interest group politics becomes more organized and more structured it tends to limit political participation, narrow the scope of interest conflict, and reduce its intensity.

The discussion of interest groups in Turkey will be preceded by a critical and comparative examination of some of the leading theorists of political development and group politics. This will identify and make more explicit the assumptions concerning the nature and consequences of interest group politics in societies at different levels of economic and political development. In particular it will describe different views of the ways in which interest groups structure political participation and thereby contribute to both the creation and possible resolution of different problems or "crises" in political development.

Theorists of political development and group politics generally have not attempted to elaborate frameworks for the comparative analysis of group development that would explain variations in group organization and activity in different societies at similar levels of socioeconomic development or in individual societies over time. Instead they have provided us with what amounts to three different sets of middle-range hypotheses about how interest groups tend to shape and structure political participation in societies at low, intermediate, and advanced levels of economic development and social differentiation. The juxtaposition of these three synchronous views into a unilinear theory of group development has tended to serve as a poor substitute for a comparative framework that would account for alternative developmental patterns.

Collectively, most developmental and group theorists have provided the following unilinear theory of group development: In the early phases of modernization, the absence of well-organized groups and the unstructured nature of group interaction contribute to potentially excessive levels of interest conflict and political participation. In the intermediate phases of modernization, the emergence of a wide variety of newly organized groups provides a specialized set of channels for managing interest conflict and for expanding participation more gradually and moderately than mass party organizations. And in the advanced phases of modernization, a small number of highly organized interest groups acquire effective control over much of the decision-making process and tend to severely constrict meaningful participation and to suppress interest conflict.

These three views of group politics are prevalent not only among. Western social scientists but also among some of the most important participants in contemporary group politics in Turkey. Descriptive generalizations that several social scientists have advanced to explain the nature of group politics in societies at different levels of development are very similar to the conflicting ideological orientations expressed by Turkish associational leaders when they describe their own system of interest politics during a specific historical period. Thus, a better understanding of prevalent political theories can also help to provide a better understanding of the perceptions and values of many key figures in Turkey's current associational life.

Three Views of Interest Group Politics in Developing Societies

General treatments of the development of interest group politics can be classified according to the different aspects of political development that seem, implicitly or explicitly, to be the most salient to the authors in question. In attempting such a classification we can benefit from James Coleman's conceptualization of political development as an open-ended process involving a "continuous interaction among the processes of structural differentiation, the imperatives of equality, and the integrative, responsive, and adaptive capacity of a political system" (emphasis added). Coleman argues that differentiation, equality, and capacity are distinct and interdependent dimensions of the "development syndrome" and that variations in political development can be understood in terms of different attempts to prevent or resolve certain political "crises" that can result from the "inherent contradictions" among these three dimensions. In a similar tripartite conceptualization, Schmitter distinguishes between theorists who identify political development primarily with "the centralization or concentration of authority," with "the dispersion or distribution of participation," or with "an 'integration' or 'balance'" of these interrelated but antagonistic processes. By approaching the work of developmental and group theorists from this perspective, three theories can be identified: (1) "gap" theory, which focuses on capacity and the concentration of authority; (2) "integration-equilibrium" theory, which focuses on differentiation and the balance between capacity and equality; and (3) "critiques of 'democratic elitism,'" which focus on equality and the dispersion of participation. By distinguishing the clear differences in emphasis that various theorists place on the three dimensions of development, we can observe corresponding differences in their views of the ways interest groups structure political participation and thereby contribute to the creation or potential resolution of various crises in political development.

Gap Theory

The leading representative of gap theory is Samuel Huntington, for whom the key factor distinguishing societies is not the type of regime but the degree of political stability. Stability, Huntington argues, can be conceptualized as the ratio between political participation and political institutionalization. He defines political development as the creation of "civic society," in which institutionalization exceeds participation, and he defines political decay as the emergence of "praetorian society," in which participation exceeds institutionalization. The central feature of modernization for Huntington is that rapid social change results in the increasing consciousness and political organization of new groups at a much faster rate than the development of strong political institutions and that the net outcome is often violence, instability, and a "corrupt society" incapable of self-government or economic growth.

The dominant theme in Huntington's presentation is what he calls "the dialectical rather than complementary relationship between polity and society" which is exemplified by a series of gaps — between mass and elite, aspiration and capacity, rates of participation and rates of institutionalization, newly mobilized social forces and the state. His preoccupation with such gaps is, in turn, based on an image of an emergent mass society. Modernization tends to produce "alienation, anomie and normlessness" and to increase the consciousness and aggressiveness against the state of the disaffected. The fundamental problem of modernization for Huntington, then, is its tendency to encourage the unlimited and excessive expression of unaggregated demands upon weak government structures.

To combat those aspects of modernization that encourage the emergence of "corrupt" mass society and to turn the tide from political decay to political development, Huntington proposes two interrelated strategic responses for political elites — an increase in the degree of political institutionalization and the control and possible reduction of political participation. Although he phrases the first response in general terms of increasing the strength and adaptability of all political institutions, Huntington is clearly most concerned with increasing the power of the state, and when he speaks of its "adaptivenss," he appears to employ a kind of vulgar functionalism in which mere persistence is equated with adaptability. Having elaborated at length his view of the "dialectical" nature of the relationship between state and society, Huntington seemingly reverses himself and speaks of a complementary relationship. What is good for the state is regarded as good for society as a whole. "The primary problem [of modernization]," he declares, "is not liberty but the creation of a legitimate public order." Huntington's understanding of legitimacy, however, appears to equate the public interest with the interest of the state. He maintains, for example, that "the legitimacy of government actions can be sought in the extent to which they reflect the interests of the governmental institutions," and that "governmental institutions derive their legitimacy and authority not to the extent to which they represent the interests of the people or any other group, but to the extent to which they have distinct interests of their own apart from all other groups."

In addition to a general increase in the capacity of the state to satisfy demands, Huntington also sees an immediate need to reduce the level of demands made upon the state through the moderation and restriction of political participation. Huntington argues that in highly developed or "institutionalized" political systems the important task of regulating participation is performed by parties and interest groups. While parties and interest groups are described as ensuring "broad, organized, and structured" participation, they are seen primarily as mechanisms to slow down and control the entry of newly mobilized social forces into politics and to make them less threatening and disruptive by changing their attitudes and behavior. Huntington describes party and group organizations, not as conduits for channeling political demands, but primarily as "filters" that shield the established political leadership from unlimited access by nonelites and that socialize nonelite leaders to preexisting political values and practices.

In a sense, the top positions of leadership are the inner core of the political system; the less powerful positions, the peripheral organizations, and the semi-political organizations are the filters through which individuals desiring access to the core must pass. ... These [intermediate] institutions impose political socialization as the price of political participation. In a praetorian society groups become mobilized into politics without becoming socialized by [preexisting patterns of] politics. The distinguishing characteristic of a highly institutionalized polity, in contrast, is the price it places on power (emphasis added).

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Interest Groups and Political Development in Turkey by Robert Bianchi. Copyright © 1984 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents

• FrontMatter, pg. i
• Preface, pg. vii
• Contents, pg. ix
• List of Tables, pg. xi
• List of Figures, pg. xiv
• CHAPTER 1. Interest Groups, Political Participation, and Political Development, pg. 1
• CHAPTER 2. Structural Differentiation and Uneven Development: Socioeconomic Bases, pg. 35
• CHAPTER 3. Political Culture: Attitudinal Bases, pg. 73
• CHAPTER 4. Public Policy Toward Associations: Formal-Legal Bases, pg. 108
• CHAPTER 5. The Emergence and Diffusion of Interest Groups: The Art of Association as a Dimension of Modernization, pg. 149
• CHAPTER 6. Strategies of Interaction and Influence, pg. 202
• CHAPTER 7. The Political Subculture of Turkish Interest Group Leaders, pg. 282
• CHAPTER 8. Turkish Interest Groups as Channels of Political Participation or Agents of Social Control?, pg. 338
• CHAPTER 9. Turkey in Comparative Perspective, pg. 355
• APPENDIX A. Regional Distribution of Three Dimensions of Associabiiity, 1965, pg. 406
• APPENDIX B. English Translation of Survey Questionnaire, pg. 409
• Selected Bibliography, pg. 413
• Index, pg. 421